Chapter 2 We Crossed

I don't know if it was luck, but fate had placed me in his hands. My fingers clenched on my sweater, and I didn't look away.

"Kael?" I whispered, and the warriors lowered their heads.

He tilted his face slightly.

We were silent for a second. Everything I had held back for years accumulated in that silence: the dirt under my fingernails, the sleepless nights on the pantry floor, the spoons stolen by other servants. My dead parents. My sleeping wolf.

And then, suddenly, he began to awaken.

It wasn't an explosion. A warmth rose, the vibration in my sternum that traveled up to my throat and filled my mouth with a sweet, wild, coppery taste.

"I smelled Kae, not just his skin, but his essence."

Kael blinked once. He felt it, I knew it. And yet, he remained motionless before what was being born.

"Lía," he said, almost in a whisper. "We're going to get you out of here."

"If they find me with you..." I murmured, looking toward the side of the forest that belonged to my pack. "They'll declare that you invaded us. That you stole me."

"People aren't stolen, they're freed."

The blond man cleared his throat nervously.

"Sir..." he hesitated. "If she is who I think she is... her mark. Her scent... Ours have already detected it."

The young man nodded, gripping the hem of his jacket with trembling fingers. The older man, on the other hand, looked at me with a mixture of respect and sadness. As if he saw beyond my bruises.

Kael didn't take his eyes off mine. He didn't need to. His pack had already read what the air was saying.

"You will pay for this," he said, without raising his voice.

It was a sentence.

I tried to get up and fell. Kael reached out and lifted me like someone raising something they love. His warmth enveloped me; I almost cried.

"Cloak," he ordered over my shoulder, and the blond man covered me with a thick cloak. The fabric fell to my ankles, and for the first time in years, I wasn't cold.

"We move silently," Kael told his people. Without leaving a trace.

"Yes, Alpha," they replied in unison.

He took a step, and I took one last deep breath on the side of the forest that had once been mine. It smelled of rancid grease, of damp leather. Of his hands. Of the kitchen where I had learned to walk on tiptoe so the floorboards wouldn't creak. I didn't say goodbye. Why would I?

We covered the first stretch along the stream. I quickly learned the rhythm of his pace; every time I stumbled, his arm caught me gently. The sharp pain in my forearm came and went, but something else was gaining ground: that new vibration that left a warmth beneath my ribs. My wolf was waking up.

"You don't have to speak," he said suddenly. "But if you want to tell me something, listen: I'll believe you."

I didn't know what to say. So many years trying to get someone to believe me the first time-"It wasn't me." "I can't lift that bucket." "I didn't mean to cry."

"I'm not weak," I said to myself. "It was important to make that clear. Even though my legs were trembling. Even though my arm ached."

Kael exhaled something that wasn't laughter or pity, it was relief.

"Even strong things break."

The trees parted, and I saw lights in the distance. They were domestic lights, warm. Houses. A territory I didn't know.

The young man ran ahead and disappeared into the shadows.

"When we grow that line," Kael said, pointing to a mark on the stone, "you'll be on my territory."

In our culture, that changed everything.

"You don't have to..."

"Yes, I do," he interrupted. "Because I am who I am. And because you are who you are, even though it was ripped from your mouth."

I felt my breathing become erratic. I hated myself for it. But also, for the first time, I didn't try to correct it. I let my chest do what it needed to.

We crossed.

The air changed again. I can't explain it without sounding like a superstitious fool. A woman came out of a nearby hut with a first-aid kit in her hand.

"Let's take care of her, the equipment is ready," she said.

Kael nodded. He lifted me a little higher, and it still hurt. I thought that smelling him so close was dangerous. Because he would haunt my nights, and if he left, it would hurt.

"Kael," I said, before they took me into the cabin. "If I stay... he'll come."

"Let him come," he replied. "Let everyone see what they did."

He didn't tremble. I did.

The room was clean, warm. A cot, soft lighting. The woman with the first-aid kit touched me with steady hands. When she saw the bruises on my ribs, she pursed her lips, but said nothing. I was grateful for the silence.

"I'm going to give you something for the pain," she announced. "It'll make you a little dizzy. Don't fall asleep yet. We need to take X-rays."

I nodded. She prepared the injection. Kael stayed by my side, a step away.

"Why did you save me?" I asked again.

"Because you were breathing. And because, when I smelled you, I knew I'd been waiting too long."

The dizziness started in my feet. Before I was plunged into darkness, I heard him speaking to someone at the door:

"Notify the Council. Tomorrow at dawn. I'm going to present her."

"Present her?" the elder asked.

"To my pack and to the law."

A tense silence.

"And what if he wants her back? What will we say?"

Kael looked at me.

-We'll say she no longer has any right to what was never hers. We'll say I claim it.

My wolf roared softly, contentedly, inside me. And I, for the first time in years, let myself fall without fear.

Darkness.